Savyg wrote:I doubt Valve will sell anything that isn't supported by the original developer.

Probably not, but the possibility of using wine is still there, much like GOG uses dosbox. It's not impossible, and if Valve doesn't do it, somebody else will. It's already possible to run steam under wine, but that needs work, and it would be better to run the client natively.

Savyg wrote:So you might see some Valve games and some iD games, but I highly doubt the vast majority of games are going to be ported just because Steam is there.

I love PC gaming and think Steam is a great service, but to pretend its anything other than a drop in the ocean for Microsoft is frankly complete and utter nonsense. Microsoft need the Windows Store to stay competitive with Apple and Google, and Gabe's Linux dalliance seems little more than sour grapes. Sad to say, but Valve need to move with the times. They are a big fish in a small pond, but the pond is drying up.

As for Windows 8, I'll reserve judgement until I've tried it. But I'll probably not pay too much attention to people who throw words like "conspiracy" around.

MrJP wrote:I love PC gaming and think Steam is a great service, but to pretend its anything other than a drop in the ocean for Microsoft is frankly complete and utter nonsense. Microsoft need the Windows Store to stay competitive with Apple and Google

Right, you just get done talking about steam's statistics, yet turn around and claim Apple is a bigger threat. Apple is only a threat in the mobile space, not on the desktop, and Microsoft does not need a phone GUI on a desktop OS.

MrJP wrote:Gabe's Linux dalliance seems little more than sour grapes. Sad to say, but Valve need to move with the times. They are a big fish in a small pond, but the pond is drying up.

Sour grapes? How about doing some critical thinking here, MS's app store is a real threat to everyone, and Gabe is hedging his bets.

MrJP wrote:As for Windows 8, I'll reserve judgement until I've tried it. But I'll probably not pay too much attention to people who throw words like "conspiracy" around.

Which would be Ned, and now you. I do not hold anyone in high regard who throws that term around lightly, because it is a serious and illegal offense, not a derogatory term for people you don't like. Using it as such unjustly diminishes the credibility of real whistlesblowers and organizations like wikileaks. The word insinuates covert criminal collaboration, which does not remotely apply to anything we are talking about. Everything Microsoft has done with windows8 has been legal and public, albeit stupid and detrimental to the entire ecosystem. Speaking of legality, it's quite hypocritical that the EU fined MS for antitrust with IE, but hasn't touched W8's app store.

It's pretty hard to take you seriously when you make crazy claims like "People do have needs beyond gaming, yes, but they aren't the majority".

It is too early to say whether Steam on Linux is a good idea, but if they're going to try it now is a good time to do so. Whatever your feelings regarding the Unity desktop (I'm not a huge fan of it myself), Ubuntu Linux has matured quite nicely. It feels polished, and the desktop LTS releases are supported for 5 years (up from 3 previously). It certainly seems *possible* to use it as a platform for commercial games now, whereas just a few years ago this would have been foolish -- the flakiness of the PulseAudio stack alone would've doomed it.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

I owe you an apology since in fairness you didn't actually use the word conspiracy. However you can understand where I got that impression when you read things like this:

l33t-g4m3r wrote:Microsoft deliberately screwed up the start menu starting with vista, so that down the line they could offer an alternative. Classic start is how it should be. Ironically, nobody would admit this problem with earlier versions until now, and later on it will be the same with Metro vs w9. The hypocrisy is nauseating.

On the other point, if you can't grasp why Microsoft might be more concerned about competing with Apple (IOS as well as OSX) than worrying about Steam heading off to Linux, then there's not much point in further discussion.

You do realize that you had the option to not use it, unlike w8, and that's a non-issue?

Hell, I still refuse to use Luna.

Hell, i still refuse to use a GUI.

and l33t, apple is a threat. maybe you're not aware of the fact they they keep increasing their market share? maybe you're not aware of that fact that they have over 50% of the ENTIRE VALUE OF MS in their bank account? That they're the largest company in the world, one with extremely loyal customers and huge political clout? maybe that the only REAL threat to MS is google and apple? I get what you're concerned about, but seriously, don't you realize the computing change that's been going on for the last few years? once apple puts full keyboard and mouse support to the iphone with a dock, matched with a decent office program, who's to stop them? nobody. people want to grab and go. i can't blame them. I'll be getting a wp device to match my sexy windows 8 (4 of them) machines. hopefully MS can capitalize on all the privacy invasions i'm getting to make apple sad.

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Reports that feedback from typical users is that the new UI is sleek and attractive, but unfamiliar.

Summary:It took a fair bit of time to go through those and type and format this response. Just a few issues have been raised, though:1 Windows 8 is a more closed-off platform than previous versions of Windows. Is this just the "Metro" side of it, though? Regardless, this has upset Gabe Newell and some other developers. Who knows where it will lead. Will hoards of developers move to Linux? Apple? Who knows. One thing it is not is an end-user problem.

2 Windows 8 phones home when software is installed. This can be disabled. Really, average folks just won't care at all about this. Those that are privacy fanatics will disable it. The only big issue is that I think Microsoft should pop up an alert at first log on and make people opt-out

3. People who have never seen Windows 8 before are generally confused the first time they see Windows 8. I'm failing to see this as a major issue. I remain confused about much of Linux after having used it off and on for several years now.

3a. An extension of point 3 that has to do with familiarity is that there are some legitimate usability issues. I feel these usability problems are legitimate, but at the same time they are problems that will vanish once the user becomes familiar with the OS. There are no visual cues that there are "hot spots" at the corners of the screen for UI interaction. Heck, I think it would make a ton of sense for Microsoft to have a list of hotkeys that pops up in a sidebar of the help screen when you hit F1.

I hope that you've found my summary to be objective and rational. Of all of these issues, the most alarming to my mind is that Windows is becoming more of a closed system. The usability stuff will clear up. I once hated the Ribbon interface that MS introduced with Office and that Autodesk then adopted since they're MS's puppet, but now that I'm used to it it's not a problem and it's probably more usable than the old menu interface. But I don't see any dealbreaker issues that would have me cautioning people to actively avoid Windows 8.

I wish I could say this has been fun. At least I can say it has been educational!

2 Windows 8 phones home when software is installed. This can be disabled. Really, average folks just won't care at all about this. Those that are privacy fanatics will disable it. The only big issue is that I think Microsoft should pop up an alert at first log on and make people opt-out

During the OoBE phase of setup, right after you finish installing, right before login. The OoBE details that SmartScreen will validate installers (among other things) and gives an on off option (default of on). It does assume that people know that Smartscreen is an anti-malware solution, but it does put it in your face and detail clearly what it does.

Since this thread was really supposed to be more about the neat things in 8. Few small items I've found cool so far.

Deleting files and folders no longer results in a "Are you sure prompt" making the experience more Unix like.

The ability to have the OS boot into the UEFI firmware for you without having to press/mash any keys. A very handy feature given how fast the boot is now.

GPT booting is considerably easier as compared to Win7.

Some of the new recovery features for restoring a hosed box is handy as well. Refresh uses USMT and Hardlink migration to save your files while laying down a fresh copy of the OS. Reset blows everything up for you. The former feature will make the holiday voluntold repair work much easier.

On a different note one feature in the OS teased me. Server 2012 gained a new feature, the ability to do NIC teaming without third party software and even with NICs from different vendors. A small piece of that capability can be seen in WIndows 8 Enterprise, but can't be enabled. My dual NIC motherboard weeps at the lost chance for pointless overkill.

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside!"

OP, I do not know if this has been covered, but Windows 8 has native support for Advanced Format (4k sector) drives. Windows 7 with SP1 still only supports the 512e (emulation) mode. Why does this matter? You probably will not notice any differences, but in some tests AF will be faster. What seems more important to me (unless I am confused about it) is that AF supports longer ECC length, which should improve data integrity. This seems like it will become increasingly important on higher-capacity drives. This is easily one of the best reasons I have seen to get Windows 8.

Cannonaire wrote:OP, I do not know if this has been covered, but Windows 8 has native support for Advanced Format (4k sector) drives. Windows 7 with SP1 still only supports the 512e (emulation) mode. Why does this matter? You probably will not notice any differences, but in some tests AF will be faster. What seems more important to me (unless I am confused about it) is that AF supports longer ECC length, which should improve data integrity. This seems like it will become increasingly important on higher-capacity drives. This is easily one of the best reasons I have seen to get Windows 8.

As long as your partitions are properly aligned for AF (which Windows 7 *does* handle properly), 512e mode already gives you most of the performance (and all of the data integrity) benefits of native 4K sectors, since the physical platters are already Advanced Format. Any differences are going to be "lost in the noise".

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

I've not read through the whole four pages of this topic, but has anyone actually made a concise list of pros/cons?

It seems to me as if Windows 8 specifically for a non-touchscreen desktop/laptop has:

a few legitimate benefits (everyone likes different things, but there's enough changes to please everyone at least somewhere).

a few worrying drawbacks (closed system, Microsoft shilling for their Microsoft Store, and undeniable reduction of UI choices and flexibility to name just three).

a whole bucketload (yes, an internet bucketload) of interface and usability annoyances. Not problems or drawbacks, just arbitrary Microsoft-serving changes that piss people off.

When you cancel benefits out with the drawbacks, you're left with a bucketload of annoyances. Most of these annoyances are concessions to make the damn thing work better on a tablet, but this is (as mentioned) a desktop/laptop issue.

In previous OS releases, the benefits usually outweighed the combined might of the drawbacks and annoyances, or at least broke even. Even including Vista, that pattern is still true until now.

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

I got my first real experience with Windows 8 today. I was leading training for my job and we had to RDP into a Plesk server. The first session of training we used one guys Windows 8 Laptop, and while the RDP did work the quick bar would work through the RDP (whatever you call the task bar that slides out from the right). Ontop of that, no matter what you did the scroll bar on Windows 8 was always there, overlapping the RDP to the far right. Was useable, but quite ugly and could get in the way if you needed to navigate to that side of the screen. The second session of training we used my Windows 7 laptop, which worked as intended with a nice full screen RDP session and no scroll bar on the side. I will let Windows 8 get through it's teething first.

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sschaem wrote:Making those crazy blunders wont kill Microsoft, but its still sad to see.They only die a little inside every time this happen, becoming less and less relevant.

They've still got an awful long way to fall before they are in danger of becoming irrelevant though; and even lumbering dinosaurs can sometimes re-invent themselves. Look at how IBM changed course (and changed the face of the computing industry) with the original PC back in the '80s, then transformed yet again into a consulting and services company when the PC business was no longer profitable enough to suit them.

Heck, even Apple had one foot in the grave before the Second Coming of Jobs turned them around.

I'm not saying that I think Microsoft will see that kind of turnaround, but it is possible. They've still got a lot of really smart people working for them.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

have you guys been playing with xbox music? this is a pretty friggin amazing service.

I didn't get the allure of Spotify (used Pandora, Last.FM, and had my own collection of MP3s). But now I get it... I've been piling tons of songs into my music collection and discovered artists and songs I would've never listened to. And it's not random like Pandora or Last.FM. I can listen to whatever song I want at any time I want. And the songs in your library feel like you own them.

Now, Xbox Music kind of sucks for your own MP3s. They're treated like the stepchildren of your library. But being able to browse nearly the entire music catalog and add any song that you desire to your own collection feels immensely amazing.

For my own MP3s, I still end up using WMP and WinAmp. But for everything else, I'm addicted to Xbox Music.

I still think Xbox Music needs a volume control at the root level. It's stupid to have to bring up the charms settings and change the volume there. You need to be able to change the volume immediately, not add extra steps.

Anywho, I don't even have Windows 8 so I'm certainly not pushing it on anyone. When you claim there are downside but then can't name any and instead tell me to do a google search, the full-of-crap meter redlines. You hate the UI. Congratulations, but that's not a downside, that's just your individual preference.

To be fair, windows anything without the UI is C:// blink blink blink... the UI is all there is. There are great linux shells that lack any UI at all, if that floats your boat, so if there were a flaw in the UI (not saying there is one), it would be a pretty big issue.

flip-mode wrote:Anywho, I don't even have Windows 8 so I'm certainly not pushing it on anyone. When you claim there are downside but then can't name any and instead tell me to do a google search, the full-of-crap meter redlines. You hate the UI. Congratulations, but that's not a downside, that's just your individual preference.

To be fair, windows anything without the UI is C:// blink blink blink... the UI is all there is. There are great linux shells that lack any UI at all, if that floats your boat, so if there were a flaw in the UI (not saying there is one), it would be a pretty big issue.

You do understand that my comment was addressing the fact that an individual's preference isn't the same as an established 'downside'? No one is talking about 'Windows without the UI'. One or two years from now we'll know the markets collective opinion and at that point I would not feel uncomfortable saying the UI is a downside if it really is. But it's too early for that. Right now it's one user in particular who is screaming very loud and offering up the opinions of a choice few others as if the UI can be judged wholly on the opinions of just a few.

this is more a side note. i have had real problems with microsoft live accounts. these are problems that i have never had with any other account. this is made worse because microsoft wants you to login to windows with an ms live account. i want to strongly advise against this. i previously used an ms live account because i was an early adapter of ms reader. i had to use the account to authenticate the program and unlock my books. i used my main email address at the time to login to the account. it happened to be an @verizon.net account. something happened where microsoft lost the account. they said they could not reset the account because it wasnt a microsoft email address (msn, hotmail, etc...). i fought with microsoft for several months and actually went through all sorts of levels with tech support including several calls to their call center in India. if i had used that account to login to windows 8 i would have been forced to reinstall windows to get back into my own computer.

my wife had a hotmail account in college. she stopped using it several years ago because it got creamed with spam. she formally deactivated/deleted the account. now someone is using her address book from tat account to spam people with that account. how can someone login to a hotmail account years after it was deactivated and start using it? mocrosoft states that they delete hotmail accounts if you do not login for 3 months and 1 day. clearly this is not the company i want controlling access to my OS. and yes, we spent a few days confirming everything i have just said and there is nothing MS is willing to do about it.

Diplomacy42 wrote:To be fair, windows anything without the UI is C:// blink blink blink... the UI is all there is.

To be even more fair, this hasn't really been true since the introduction of the Windows NT kernel (which finally trickled down to the consumer market when Windows XP debuted). They hired a real OS designer for the NT kernel, and it shows. Unfortunately, they needed to carry forward a lot of the crufty old DOS legacy stuff for backward compatibility reasons, e.g. the use of letters to reference disk drives, COMx for communication ports, etc.

But the bottom line is, the last Windows that was "just a UI on top of DOS" was Windows ME. The NT line, and everything from XP forward, is really a different OS from the ground up with a bunch of DOS compatibility crap grafted on.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

dos and 16-bit windows support were dropped in win64-bit OS's. You may still have a command line, but you can't run any dos programs. Nor 16-bit windows programs for that matter, and that aggravates me since there are a few games that won't run outside of a VM. Of course, this will soon be the future of win32 apps if Microsoft get's their way of replacing it with winrt.

flip-mode wrote:Right now it's one user in particular who is screaming very loud / an individual's preference isn't the same as an established 'downside'?

Yet again, you attempt to claim I am the SOLE complainer of windows 8, and insulting and belittling me somehow makes you right. I don't see how you justify your bias, since all you're demonstrating is the inability to have a honest discussion, and the inability to admit that there are numerous people who don't like windows 8. For the most part, and feel free to prove me wrong, the pro8ers are somewhat tied to the Microsoft ecosystem, and they are pushing the OS because they will personally benefit from having a closed environment. That's why most of the pro8 reviews read exactly like Advertorials.

flip-mode wrote:One or two years from now we'll know the markets collective opinion

Yeah, after it's been shoved down everyone's throat, and every single complainer has been told numerous times by people like you to adjust and live with it. Then Microsoft will introduce windows9, and you'll sell people on it by finally admitting the problems of windows8. Exactly what happened with Vista-7, and 7 wasn't even great, aside from it being a fixed version of Vista. Win9 will be a fixed version of 8, and that will be what everyone actually switches to, although none of the real underlying issues will be addressed, like the app store, and winrt being vendor lockin. If Microsoft doesn't do a 180 by windows 9, and steam has decent game support by then, I'll switch to linux since they will be a better alternative. There is no benefit to any sort of improvement in winrt, since you can't sell or freely offer your apps outside of microsoft. IMO, this all has been done deliberately so that Microsoft could force people to switch, then enjoy the profits of being a full monopoly, and there are a million problems with that. One or two years from now will be too late. Overall, I hope RT tablets fail miserably and both Ballmer and Sinofsky are fired.

Savyg wrote:I find the 'taskmanager is a ripoff of process explorer' bit funny since the guy who makes Process Explorer works for Microsoft.How can they rip themselves off, exactly? The same guy probably programmed it.

I honestly don't feel like bothering to answer this question, but since this is the overall mentality of the hardcore pro8's here, someone had to say something about it.

Originally, the Sysinternals website (formerly known as ntinternals[2]) was created in 1996 and was operated by the company Winternals Software LP,[1] which was located in Austin, Texas. It was started by software developers Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich.[1] Microsoft acquired Winternals and its assets on July 18, 2006.[3

This may be a great thing for these guys financially, but now their future stuff could be tainted to enforce the windows upgrade cycle. Oh, goody. So much to look forward to.

since the Microsoft acquisition, none of the utilities currently available is accompanied with source code, and the Linux versions are no longer maintained or available.

gamer, there's a complete flipside to everything you posted. you seem to be going out of your way to push your opinions on why you hate windows 8. as if it's your moral responsibility to teach everyone the errors of their way for considering windows 8. you view read reviews that are positive on Windows 8 as advertisements and mindless sheep. it's not possible that people can like Windows 8? is it possible for you to not lump people who like Windows 8 as mindless sheep?

and a lot of anti-Windows 8 people seem to be grasping at conspiracies. windows 8 is not any more locked down than any other windows. yes, the windows store is locked down. so is steam. so is Origin. or Ubisoft. or any other marketplace. nothing prevents anyone from shopping at other stores or releasing their software titles at other stores. I listed FarSight Studios as a classic example of Steam being locked down. FarSight make pinball games (great ones actually, I own them) and are trying to get onto the Steam through the Steam greenlight process. They are begging gamers to vote and tell Steam to add them. Stop hoping that Steam/Valve is some kind of savior that will rescue people from the closed ecosystems of the world. Stop with all the slippery slope conspiracies. We live in reality. You can't predict what will happen 10 years from now.

All you can do is manage your own behavior. I see that your username is elitegamer. One example of me showing dislike through my wallet is I do not buy EA games. Because EA uses dedicated servers and can and has disconnected online support to many games, including games that are only a year old in order to get people to buy new software.

you view Microsoft as this evil corporation and your views are clearly evident with how you colored the Winternals acquisition. It's not possible that they wanted to be acquired? Joining a big corporation doesn't make you a sellout.

Yes, the world has changed and we no longer own things like we used to. But it's not Microsoft that's leading the charge. It's the media conglomerates, it's Apple, it's Google. There are no saints in business. They all have ways to lock us in and take away what used to be fair use.

But it seems that you're specifically looking for "aha" points to hate Windows 8 and totally skipping over the benefits as mere pandering.

l33t-g4m3r wrote:Yet again, you attempt to claim I am the SOLE complainer of windows 8, and insulting and belittling me somehow makes you right. I don't see how you justify your bias, since all you're demonstrating is the inability to have a honest discussion, and the inability to admit that there are numerous people who don't like windows 8. For the most part, and feel free to prove me wrong, the pro8ers are somewhat tied to the Microsoft ecosystem, and they are pushing the OS because they will personally benefit from having a closed environment. That's why most of the pro8 reviews read exactly like Advertorials.

Fair enough, let me rephrase: it's too soon to know if the Windows 8 UI will be broadly accepted or broadly rejected, and therefore it's too early to objectively say whether or not the new UI is a 'downside' or not.

Yeah, after it's been shoved down everyone's throat, and every single complainer has been told numerous times by people like you to adjust and live with it.

I haven't told you or anyone else to 'live with it'. I think you simply forgotten the origins of this thread - tanker27 specifically asked people to attempt to sell him on Windows 8. Strictly speaking, you've been engaging in egregious thread crapping since you're just spreading your UI hate and posting Gabe Newell's opinion ad infinitum. That's not what the OP asked for.

Savyg wrote:I find the 'taskmanager is a ripoff of process explorer' bit funny since the guy who makes Process Explorer works for Microsoft.How can they rip themselves off, exactly? The same guy probably programmed it.

Having seen the inanity of your response, perhaps you should have refrained. The fact that Microsoft has integrated Process Explorer-like functionality into Task Manager should be roundly applauded, but you inexplicably consider it one of the OS's downsides.

I'd just like to point out here (as I have on some other threads) that Metro has more than a few similarities to Xbox Live. This is a bit of a jump BUT:

1. If MS pushes in Win9 or Win...whatever for devs to ONLY use "metro" approved apps, and essentially make the standard windows install a "closed" system (like what Win RT is right now)and2. MS decides that they will kill the start menu completelythey could3. Decide that a portion of your metro/start screen should be dedicated to the "app store" and be nothing more than a live advertisement, permanently on your screen, with no way of removing it.

Just like Xbox Live. (which in reality has ~50% of the screen made up of ads).